Lips Touch - Book Review

Lips Touch
by Laini Taylor
with illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo

What is it about:
Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

Goblin Fruit
In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses
A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling
Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?

What did I think of it:
I really liked Taylor's world building and writing in Daughter of Smoke and Bone, so when I ran into this book with three short stories by Taylor, I decided to give it a try.

The first pleasant surprise:
The illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo


At the start of each story there are several panels that depict part of the story. I really enjoyed looking at these illustrations. Di Bartolo really captured the mood of the stories in my opinion.

As for the stories itself:

Goblin Fruit tells the story of a teen who doesn't fit in, and draws the attention of goblins who want her soul. I liked how it was set up, and especially how things all played out. For such a simple set up it was a surprisingly original story.

Spicy Little Curses was more complex and exotic. It is set in colonial India, and I really liked the idea of a prim English widow being the ambassador to Hell. The setting and the mythology used all worked together to make this an enjoyable and suspenseful story.

In Hatchling Taylor used the same story telling technique that annoyed me in Daughter of Smoke and Bone: flashbacks/skipping back in time to reveal important information for the plot. I'm not a fan of this technique, but this being a novella, it didn't drag my out of the flow of the story as much as it did in Daughter of Smoke and Bone.

All in all I very much enjoyed reading these stories, and they even made me more interested in reading the next book in her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series.

Why should you read it:
It's a very enjoyable collection of Paranormal YA stories.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone - Book Review

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #1)
by Laini Taylor

What is it about:
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

What did I think of it:
Everyone who read this book seemed to love it, so I decided I had to give it a try.

And for most I really enjoyed this book.

The world building is dark and magical. The creatures are intriguing, and even though I didn't particularly like Karou, I was invested in the story. Then of course a character was introduced who I really liked, and that character died of course...

No problem, I'm used to that, and Akiva was introduced as well, and I also really liked Akiva. And when Akiva and Karou got to know each other, I even started to like Karou more.

The developments and discoveries where really suspenseful, up until there was a flashback in the story. I know it was needed to show the reader some important things, but for me the story lost steam at this point and I had trouble getting through this part of the story.

The ending did make me curious to what's going to happen next though, and all in all this book was cool enough that I most probably will continue to read this series.

Why should you read it:
It's a Paranormal Ya read with a very cool setting.